When The Salt Comes Out
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: A Whumpy missing scene/ tag from "Asylum" between Sam waking up in the basement and them being outside at the very end.


"You're not gonna try to kill me are you?" Dean asked, pushing himself back into a sitting position as his brother came around beside him.

"No." Came the only slightly confused reply.

"Good, cause that would be awkward." Dean had no idea if Sam could remember. How much of the venom he had spat as Dean had lain, barely conscious on the floor, had been real? How much of it had simply been part of Ellicott's "treatment"? One part of him just wanted to chalk it all up to being that. It was so much easier to forgive when it wasn't Sam's fault, wasn't Sam's true feelings towards him. He'd already burned Ellicott, so there was nothing left to blame there. "Are you alright?" He asked cautiously.

"Jaw hurts, head hurts, but nothing's broken. I'm okay. How about you?" He didn't seem to remember, or maybe he was simply too ashamed to admit it. Part of Dean wanted him not to. Part of Sam probably wanted that too. Dean put his hand to his chest and it came back wet, sticky. He didn't want to look at it. It didn't hurt yet, there was still too much adrenalin and endorphins in his system for that. A few minutes maybe and he would feel the burning sensation as the salt dried out the wound. It would hurt like hell but at least it wouldn't get infected. He grimaced, the back of his head hurt where it had made contact with the ground as well. Mild concussion maybe, nothing too serious. He was pretty sure it hadn't been what had knocked him out. "Dean?" Sam looked worried and Dean realized he'd been a while in answering.

"I'm sorry, Sam." He said. It was honest, too. If even one of those things Sam had said to him were true, he had deserved every awful feeling. "Do you remember?" He asked carefully. Sam looked thoughtful for a second.

"Not specifically, no, but I was angry, this terrible, awful, surging anger and I wanted you dead; and I wanted everyone else to just go so I could make it happen. If I said something, I didn't mean it. You shouldn't be the one apologizing." Sam paused, looking at Dean's bloody hand. "Did I do that?" he asked quietly.

"I'll be okay." It was true, he would. He wasn't indestructible, but his body had taken worse beatings and had won through, so yeah, a little rest and he would be back online.

"No, Dean, answer me. What did I do to you?" there was genuine fear and concern on his face. He was clearly thinking he'd done something terrible.

"It's Rock Salt, Sam, it's not going to kill me." _It's gonna hurt like hell, though, just like you said._

"We need to get you out of here, there's a pretty good first aid kit in the trunk. Can you walk?" Sam panicked.

"Of course I can." He was going to add_ Idiot_; obviously he could walk, the wound was on his chest and as far as he could tell, very shallow. But he knew that Sam was trying to make up for what he had done by overreacting, and if that's what needed to happen, then Dean was going to let it. Not letting Sam deal with something like this would just be bad for both of them. He let Sam haul him to his feet but refused any further assistance. He still didn't want to give his brother any more reason to worry about him. Blood was soaking into his shirt and he didn't want to end up in a hospital today if he could avoid it.

They pushed through the doors into the bright sunlight of morning, and Dean self-consciously wrapped his jacket tighter around himself, sealing off the glistening blood from Sam's eyes. He knew the way blood looked in the light of day, telltale and pleading, obvious even; at least in the darkness of the basement it just looked like a dark stain, could have been water or spilled lighter fluid or whatever. In the sunlight, it was blood. The salt was beginning to hurt too. The adrenalin was wearing off.

"Sit." Sam ordered, not looking him in the eye, "and take off your shirt."

"What? Here? _Now_? We aren't going back to the motel?" Dean protested. "I already told you, I'm not going to bleed out right here, we've got time." Sam gave him a look.

"There's rock salt in your chest, the skin's broken. We should get it out as soon as possible, and that means here, now, on the front step of the asylum." A pre-rehearsed speech for when he, predictably, had resisted. Very robotic-sounding. Sam was running on autopilot. "Just take it off."

"That's what she said." Dean mumbled

"Sorry, didn't catch that?"

"Nothing." Sam glared but didn't retaliate. A few moments later he hopped the fence again with the kit. Dean carefully peeled the sodden edges of fabric from the wound and then the rest of the shirt off his body. Along with it came most of the blood. It had stopped bleeding, probably having something to do with the salt, and congealed on the cloth leaving an orangey-red tattoo on his skin. It didn't look as bad as he'd imagined it, only eight or nine granules of salt had actually penetrated and bled.

Sam opened the first aid kit, but Dean grabbed the tweezers first and began to dig for the salt fragments. Sam started to protest but cut off.

"I get it; I guess I wouldn't trust you either if you had just shot me." He finished lamely. Dean rolled his eyes. It felt almost like Sam was guilting him, but he knew the words were intended to be a comfort of some kind. Some sort of 'it's okay' between the two of them. He didn't need that. There had been no animosity in the action; he just didn't like to feel like an invalid.

"That person, in there that held the gun to my head, that wasn't you, Sammy. You need to know that. That was Dr. Ellicott's creation in your body. I don't hold it against you." He said, maybe a little too forcefully. Sam looked at his face, not quite his eyes yet, but certainly getting closer. He was squinting in the sun.

"I knew what I was doing, Dean, I was conscious. It wasn't like something possessed me or anything; I chose what to do, wanted you dead."

"Good thing I didn't give you the loaded gun then, right?"

"I'm serious, Dean, if you had given me half a chance in there you'd be dead. I don't think I could have lived with that."

"These things happen; you can't let them rule your life. I forgive you. Hell, there's nothing to forgive. It could have been me in there, or Kat or Gavin too. Any one of us could have flipped and you just won the lottery. Maybe you had some kind of issue Ellicott latched on to. Maybe he liked your freak psychicness and decided that you would be more receptive or whatever. I don't know. I don't want to know." He stopped then, looking at Sam quietly, willing him to look back.

"Give me that." Sam pulled the tweezers from his hand and let them hover for a moment over one of the entry points. Dean knew it was just an excuse not to make eye contact, he knew he would probably have done the same. Sam dug the tweezers into one of the holes in search of an offending granule of salt. Pain radiated from the spot as he pulled and Dean had to grip his thigh tightly to keep from crying out. He pushed his back into the brick wall behind him; trying to ground himself, will the pain away. Somehow it hurt less to fish for the crystals himself. He felt a warm trickle of blood slide down his torso from the wound. Sam finally looked him in the eye.

"Thanks," He said quietly.

"Don't mention it. Just get rid of the salt." He ground out. Sam nodded.

"Ready?"

"Come on, get it over with. This is nowhere near as fun for me." Sam started to pull the salt pieces, one by one, from the scattered wounds. Little explosions of pain as the metal entered the wound, and then slight relief as the salt was pulled from it. Over and over. At least Sam was going fast or this would have been almost unbearable.

Finally it stopped and Dean slumped against the brick, his eyes closed. He wasn't unconscious; he could feel the unpleasant burning sensation of recently messed-with injuries, so he chose to simply drift.

"Dean? Dean?" Sam was calling his name, but he didn't want to fully wake up. He felt water flushing the raw flesh free of salt and dirt, then he gasped as Sam pressed a bandage to his chest. "Hold this there." Sam instructed, and Dean did as he was told, not so much out of shame but simply that he didn't have the energy to argue. Having been awake and on full alert all night was starting to take a toll, and he was starting to feel it. He felt Sam begin to wrap a roller bandage around his chest to keep pressure on the salt wound. He tied it roughly over a red patch where the blood was already starting to seep slowly through. "You okay?" Sam asked. Dean nodded. The pain was dissipating, his head was clearing. He'd be good in a few minutes. Not perfect; dead tired and disgusting, smelling like blood and that rotting secret exam room, but good. "Then stay here, I'll get you a shirt from the car." Sam hopped the fence again and returned with a fresh shirt and water bottle. "Need help?" He asked. Dean shook his head and as if to prove the point, drank half the bottle in one go. Then he wrestled the shirt carefully over his head, grimacing as he jarred the fragile skin beneath the bandages. Sam was good at first aid stuff, a lot of other stuff too, actually, and he always had been. It was good to have him back.

Sam helped him up as Gavin and Kat rounded the corner. Dean couldn't wait to put the old asylum in his rearview, and maybe sleep for a few months. He knew that everyone else there felt the same.


End file.
